Onward and Upward
by Person4
Summary: Raiden tries to pull himself together the night after the Big Shell incident. But once more Snake shows up to help.  Written for the New Game Plus fic exchange.


When Otacon had offered to let Raiden come back to the safe house he and Snake were using until things had calmed down a little it had only felt natural to accept. The Patriots may have released Rose, but he had no idea whether or not they were really planning to let him walk away from them so easily. Until he was sure he was safe he couldn't head back to his apartment, or to Rose's; doing so would be as good as walking straight into their hands. So he needed _somewhere_ to stay.

And, though he'd never admit it to Rose and make her worry, he was the only person Raiden had met that day that didn't make him question his sanity. When the only other person who _hadn't_ been custom-picked to feed into the part of his mind that had spent days in VR pretending to be Solid Snake had turned out to be his hero himself, and the most normal of the rest of them was a guy who'd somehow managed to fool the world into thinking he had a wrecked leg for years and who was supposed to be a genius at his job but was too dumb to realize that his old student might have picked up a thing or two since the last time he'd seen him, it was hard to trust that it wasn't all just some massive delusion that The Patriots had implanted in his mind.

But they wouldn't have come up with Otacon. Sure, Dr. Hal Emmerich had been mentioned in _In the Darkness of Shadow Moses_ and they could have sent an image of him along to make an illusion of Solid Snake seem more authentic, though a Meryl Silverburgh seemed more likely, but that image wouldn't have been _Otacon_. They would have made themselves a Dr. Emmerich pulled straight out of what Raiden's imagination told him a scientist experienced enough to create something like Metal Gear should be like. A frail and balding old man with glasses an inch and a half thick. A boring person who wasn't interested in anything but how machines were put together.

Not an awkward cartoon geek who could prove his mettle by pushing aside his grief to single-handedly lead innocent hostages to safety just when he seemed to have no business getting caught up in a battle zone.

A guy like that just had to be real, and that wasn't something Raiden had even been able to trust for sure about _Rose_ until Otacon had seen her too when he'd introduced them. Of course Raiden wanted to stick around him for awhile, at least until he felt more stable inside his own mind.

Although it quickly became clear that just because they were in the same apartment it didn't necessarily mean that they'd be around each other.

"I hope you don't mind sleeping on the couch," Otacon had told him when they walked in, looking a little embarrassed as Raiden took in the sparseness of the main room, although compared to Raiden's own apartment it almost seemed overfurnished. "If I were sure Snake wasn't planning on coming home tonight I'd let you take his bed, but..." he trailed off with a shrug, but Raiden understood. He'd only known the man for one day, but he already could tell that Snake was the type of person who'd just show up with no warning.

"That's fine," Raiden had said, dropping straight onto the sofa. "After the day we've had, you could have told me I have to take the floor and I'd still fall straight to sleep."

"Okay, the bathroom is through there," Otacon had gestured towards the first door in the short hallway branching off the main room, "and there's things to make sandwiches in the kitchen if you're hungry. I think there are a few cans of soup too, if you want something hot. I'm sorry we can't offer anything more."

"No, I get it," Raiden said, waving the apology off. "You don't settle down in a safe house. I understand that."

"Well, I think that's everything, then." Otacon had taken one last look around, then turned away. "I'll bring you some blankets, but then there's something I need to get to work on. Tying up loose ends from the mission. You can watch TV if you want; don't worry about bothering me with the noise."

And then he'd vanished away into what Raiden had to assume was his room, and hadn't appeared again aside from bringing out the blankets he'd promised and a pillow to go with them.

Raiden had quickly realized that sleep wasn't going to come as quickly as he had expected, no matter how long the day had been. He was tired straight down to his bones, but when he closed his eyes he found it was impossible for him to clear his mind enough to drop off. In the dark there was nothing left to distract him from thinking about everything that he'd learned that day, or from the previously long-lost memories that hadn't stopped flooding back ever since Solidus had put the first cracks in the mental blocks holding them at bay.

He tried turning on the TV, but it wasn't any help. They didn't have cable, and all the usual network station programming had been preempted by emergency news broadcasts; news which was filled with nothing but the destruction of much of Manhattan and the death of former President Sears in front of Federal Hall.

He could practically see the filthy touch of The Patriots all over the latter story. There was no mention of his exoskeleton, which should have been odd enough that it wouldn't have been left out of the story no matter how much more interesting Arsenal Gear was. They said nothing about the sword wounds covering his body, instead the official story made him out to be nothing more than a feeble old man who had suffered a fatal heart attack from the shock of the attack on the city occurring right in front of him. It disgusted Raiden, but not as much as the part of his mind shaped by his returning memories which quickly began to feel guiltily like he'd betrayed his "father" by not finding a way to smuggle his body away instead of leaving it so they could use his death however they wanted.

He gave up on that quickly and switched to flipping through the handful of magazines scattered around the room, but those were no better. They were all about cartoons, or technology, or, oddly, a couple of issues of _K9 Magazine_ that were mixed in with the rest, nothing that he was really interested in.

Finally, with no other options, he started sorting through all the equipment he'd picked up on the mission.

His left over rations went straight into the trash. He didn't care how useful they were, the things tasted too awful to keep around just on the off-chance that he'd ever need nutrient-rich food in a hurry. They might be better than Rose's cooking, but he could always scrounge up something better than either if he needed to. The empty ammo magazines and porn books followed the rations into the bin, the magazines clattered against the bottom loudly enough that he would have worried about disturbing Otacon if he didn't know that he hadn't vanished into his room for sleep.

With the empty boxes, on the other hand, he ignored the large part of him saying that they were just more trash which should be folded up and tossed away with the rest of the garbage and stacked them up neatly beside the door where they'd be well away from any accidental spills that could damage the corrugated cardboard. Raiden doubted that he'd ever become a cardboard box enthusiast, but he might as well leave them for Snake.

He'd moved on to performing maintenance on his guns, doing his best to convince himself that he'd only snuck back into Arsenal Gear to rescue them before meeting up with Otacon to keep anyone from finding illegal weapons with his fingerprints all over them in the heart of the machine which had ruined a large hunk of the city and not because he ever planned on needing to use them again, when Snake walked in. He didn't seem especially surprised to see Raiden there, just grunted at him in greeting, looking as tired as Raiden felt.

"No luck finding..." Raiden trailed off, uncertain for a moment exactly how to finish that sentence; Ocelot? Liquid? Ray? Finally he decided that if he could deal with running into a family member he'd forgotten existed, Snake could do the same with one he thought was dead, "...your brother?"

"You wouldn't think it'd be so easy to lose track of a two story tank," he replied wearily, rummaging around in one of the cupboards of the kitchenette for a moment. When he pulled his arm out again he was holding two bottles of beer. "You look like you need some help clearing your mind," he said, passing one to Raiden.

"What, you think I should drink until I forget? I've had enough of forgetting."

"Nobody's trying to drive you to alcoholism, kid. But if you need help sleeping your choices are this, a dart in the neck, or a punch or two, and I figured you've been knocked out enough for one day."

"And who do I have to thank for that?" Raiden grumbled under his breath, but Snake appeared to consider the matter closed, reaching for the grenade launcher.

"Do you know how to maintain your RGB6?"

Raiden shook his head. "You know they didn't have them in VR, and before that... no." He took a pull of his beer, trying not to think about that 'before' anymore than he had to, and made a face when he found it stale. But Snake didn't seem to give a damn, so he choked it down without a comment too.

"Better let me handle it, then. Otacon won't be too happy if a grenade accidentally goes off in here."

"I don't think your landlord would be too thrilled either." Raiden bent back to the sniper rifle he'd been working on when Snake came in, but his attention kept drifting back to Snake. He was slowly getting used to remembering that he really was a vet of more than just the VR wars, but just the way Snake worked on the launcher showed that he was more of a soldier than Raiden ever was. He worked like he'd instinctualized every little movement needed to keep his weapon in top working order, without needing to stop for even a moment to think.

Snake glanced up at him after a moment, and Raiden realized that he'd noticed his attention. To try to save face by having a reason for turning away from his gun he quickly said, "What do you think I should do with that bomb sensor? I know I'll never need one that sniffs out Fatman's perfume again, but it doesn't feel right to just toss out Stillman's work."

"Raiden, you should know by now that he left more for you to remember him by than just a bomb detector. He might not have been proud of everything he told you about his life, but just like everything else you need to take the good from it and learn from the bad." He sat the RGB aside and reached for the Stinger, and kept his eyes focused on it as he added, almost like an aside, "That counts for Solidus too."

Raiden froze, then slowly closed his eyes. "Are you speaking from experience? How did you deal with it, with Big Boss?"

Snake snorted, and shook his head. "Badly. Trust me, kid; you don't _want_ to follow my lead on this one." Then he paused for a moment, and reached out to briefly grasp Raiden's shoulder. "But, listen; I don't know either of the men who've called me their brother. I don't know what sort of people they were when they weren't heading terrorists plots, and I never especially wanted to. Still, it sounds like Solidus was more of a father to you than that man was to any of us, and even after everything you've been through you've turned out pretty well. Don't feel like you need to deny however much of that you owe to him because of how things turned out."

It wasn't much in the way of words of sympathy, but Raiden felt like something that had been twisted up tight inside of him ever since he'd walk away from Federal Hall was slowly starting to loosen. He bowed his head back over his gun, only hesitating long enough to say, "Thanks, Snake," before he started to work once more. 


End file.
